Ellery Queen's Champions of Mystery vol. 33 (1977)

by Ellery Queen

  I had picked up the stack of bills and was going to a window. Putting the one on top side by side with the one I had taken from the safe, one minute with the glass settled it. I took the one from the bottom of the stack and one from the middle, and used the glass on them. The same. I stuck the good one in my pocket and crossed to them.

  “There’ll probably be an award,” I told her. “Official. They’re phonies. Counterfeit.”

  I told a friend of mine about this incident one day a few weeks later, and when I got this far I asked her to guess what Hattie’s reaction had been. “That’s easy,” my friend said. “She accused you of taking good bills from the package and substituting bad ones. You should have known she would.”

  My friend couldn’t have been more wrong, but I admit it was my fault. I hadn’t drawn Hattie true to life. What Hattie actually said was, “Of course they’re counterfeit. Why would he hide real money in my parlor? And why would I bring it to Nero Wolfe?”

  “You knew they were phonies?” I demanded.

  “I knew they must be.”

  “You didn’t mention it.”

  “Why should I? To you two great detectives? You knew it too or you wouldn’t have examined them with a magnifying glass.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know it, I only suspected it. I suspected it when I answered the bell just now and found a T-man at the door. A T-man is a Secret Service agent of the Treasury Department. He wanted to know if a woman named Tamiris Baxter was here. I told him no, that she was here this morning for ten minutes and left her—”

  “Tammy Baxter? Tammy was here?”

  “Right. She wanted to know if you had been here and I told her no. She left her phone number and asked me to ring her if you came. Then the T-man asked if Hattie Annis had been here, and I told him I was against answering miscellaneous questions, which is true, but the thing was, I had got curious about this stack of bills and wanted to take a look. So he left and I came and looked. Now you say you knew they were counterfeit.”

  “Archie,” Wolfe was gruff. “You saw that man’s credentials?”

  “Of course.”

  “He asked for Miss Annis?”

  “He asked if she had been here.”

  “Why didn’t you bring him in?”

  “Because I wanted to look at the bills. If they were okay I saw no reason to let a T-man disturb a guest of yours who appreciates Fritz’s coffee.”

  The trouble was, she had finished the coffee. “Very well,” he said, “you have looked at them. Does the Secret Service have a New York office?”

  “Yes.” A list of things any two-bit dick knows and he doesn’t would fill a book.

  “Call them and report. If Miss Annis leaves before they arrive, keep the bills, and of course they will want the wrapping paper. Give her a receipt if she wants one.” He turned and made for the office, shutting the door.

  It didn’t stay shut long. I admit I could have stopped her, by taking a step and stretching an arm, but I thought he might at least have given her a chance to thank him for the coffee. So I didn’t take the step until she had the door open, and then went only to the sill. Wolfe was in his chair behind his desk before he knew she was there.

  “Did you mean that?” she demanded. “Call the cops and hand it over?”

  “Not the cops, madam.” He was sharp. “The Secret Service. I have a responsibility as a citizen. Counterfeit money is contraband. I can’t let you walk out of my house with it.”

  She put a hand on the desk edge for a prop. “Bootlicker,” she said. “The great detective Nero Wolfe just a flunky for the cops. If Falstaff was here, I’d apologize to him. Maybe he wasn’t much of a hero, but he was no toady. You can’t glare me down, the lady’s going to talk. I found that stuff in my house, and I thought, I’d rather just burn it than turn it over to the cops. I thought the thing to do was find out who put it there and then go to a newspaper. Finding a counterfeiter ought to call for a reward.

  “But I didn’t know how to find out because my mind doesn’t work like that, so I thought I would get a detective and split the reward with him, and I might as well get the best, so I go to Nero Wolfe, and this is what happens. Counterfeit money may be contraband, but it’s not your counterfeit money, it’s mine. I found it in my house, but what do you care, you want to suck up to the cops, so you tell him to call them and report, and keep the bills, and swaggle out. I spit at you. I don’t spit, but I spit at you.” She about-faced. “You too, Buster. Is this what you carried me in for?”

  “Madam,” Wolfe said.

  She whirled back. “Don’t madam me!”

  “You have a point,” Wolfe said. “I reject your charge of servility, but you have a point, and an interesting one. I am not an officer of the law. Has a private citizen the right to confiscate contraband? I doubt it. Even if he has the right, is it a duty? Surely not. That counterfeit money is yours until it is seized by public authority. I confess to error, but I was prompted by expedience, not sycophancy. I merely wanted to get clear of a muddle. Now, confound it, you have raised a point I can’t ignore, but neither can I ignore my obligation as a citizen.

  “I offer a suggestion: Mr. Goodwin will put the bills in my safe and go with you to your house and investigate. You say you want to engage me to identify and expose the counterfeiter; he will decide if that is feasible without prolonged and expensive inquiry. If it isn’t I’ll return your property to you, but I shall notify the Secret Service that I am doing so. In either case I shall expect no fee. You are not my client. I am merely wriggling out of a muddle. Well?”

  “We split the reward three ways,” she said.

  “I have no interest in a reward.” She flipped a hand, discarding it. “There probably won’t be any.”

  “There had better be. I don’t need it. I’ve got enough to go on and then some, but I’ve never earned any money and this is my chance. Keeping it in your safe, that’s all right. I’m not going to apologize for what I said until I see what happens.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. Archie?”

  I moved. The bills were still in my hand, but the wrapping paper and string were on the chair. I went and brought them, holding the paper by a corner. “A question,” I said. “Since he hid it where it might possibly be found he might have had sense enough not to leave prints, but he might not. If not, I’ve got him right here. I can find out in ten minutes, but it would be tampering with evidence, and the question is, do I?”

  “Of course,” Hattie said. “I thought of that but I didn’t know how.”

  “You can’t test it without leaving traces,” Wolfe said.

  “No.”

  “Then don’t. That can wait.”

  Of course my prints were already there, on both the bills and the paper, but there was no point in adding more, so I took care putting them in the safe. I asked Wolfe if he had any instructions, and when he said no, I knew what the situation required.

  I got Hattie’s bag and gloves from the front room, she hadn’t taken her coat off. I thought I might as well try her pulse, but she wouldn’t let me. When I showed her to the lavatory to look in the mirror she had to admit her face could stand some attention, and when she came out the smudge was gone and she had even tucked her hair in some.

  Walking to Tenth Avenue for a taxi she limped a little, but she said it was nothing, just that her hip had a sore spot. When we were stopped by a red light at 38th Street the sight of a harness bull on the sidewalk prompted her to explain why she was so down on him and his. I got it that her father had been shot by one without provocation, but she seemed a little hazy about the details, and I was more interested in something else: what did she know of Tammy Baxter? She must be involved somehow, since the T-man wanted her.

  Hattie said no, it couldn’t be Tammy, because she only had one suit, two dresses, three blouses, and two skirts, and her fur coat was rabbit, and if she were a counterfeiter she would have more clothes. I conceded that that was pretty decisive, but why was the T-
man interested in her? How long had she been living in Hattie’s house? Three weeks. What did Hattie know of her background and history? Nothing. Hattie never asked for references. When someone came and wanted a place to sleep she just sized him up. Or her.

  The other four current roomers had all been there longer—one of them, Raymond Dell, more than three years. In the thirties Dell had always had enough work to lunch at Sardi’s twice a week, and in the forties he had done fairly well in Hollywood; but now he was down to a few TV crumbs.

  Noel Ferris, a year and a half. A year ago he had been in a play which had folded in four days, and this season in one which had lasted two weeks.

  Paul Hannah, four months. A kid in his early twenties with no Broadway record. He was rehearsing in a show that was to open next month at an off-Broadway theater, the Mushroom.

  Martha Kirk, eleven months. Twenty years old. Was in Short and Sweet for a year. Now studying at the Eastern Ballet Studio.

  That was what I had got when the taxi rolled to the curb in 47th Street. Tammy Baxter had said the house was a dump, and it was, like hundreds of others in that part of town. The wind whirled some snow into the vestibule when I pushed the door open. Hattie used her key on the inner door and we entered. I had told her that I would first take a look at the bookshelf, to see if the dust situation could furnish any information as to how long the package had been there, but as we were taking off our coats in the hall a voice came booming down the stairs.

  “Is that you, Hattie?”

  The owner of the voice was following it down. He was a tall thin guy with a marvelous mane of wavy white hair, in an ancient blue dressing gown with spots on it. He was rumbling, “Where on earth have you been, or above it or beneath? Without you this house is a sepulcher! There are no oranges.” He noticed me. “How do you do, sir.”

  “Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Dell,” Hattie said. I started to offer a hand, but he was bowing, so I bowed instead. A voice sounded behind me. “This way for oranges, Ray! I got some. Good morning, Hattie—I mean good afternoon.”

  Raymond Dell headed for the rear of the hall, where a girl was standing in a doorway, and when Hattie followed him I tagged along, on into the kitchen. On a big linoleum-topped table in the center a large brass bowl was piled high with oranges, and by the time I entered Dell had taken one and started to peel it. There was a smell of coffee.

  “Miss Kirk, Mr. Goodwin,” Hattie said.

  Martha Kirk barely looked her twenty. She was ornamental both above the neck and below, with matching dimples. She gave me a glance and a nod, and asked Hattie, “Do you know where Tammy is? Two phone calls. A man, no name.”

  Hattie said she didn’t know. Dell looked up from his orange to rumble at me, “You’re a civilian, Mr. Goodwin?”

  It was a well-put question, since if I wasn’t in show business my reply would show whether I was close enough to it to know that stage people call outsiders civilians. But Hattie replied for me.

  “You watch your tongue with Mr. Goodwin,” she told him. “He thinks he’s going to do a piece for a magazine about me and my house, and that’s why he’s here. We’re all going to be famous. There’ll be a picture of us with Carol Jasper. She lived here nearly a year.”

  “What magazine?” Dell demanded. Martha Kirk skipped around the table to curtsy to me. “What would you like?” she asked. “An omelet of larks’ eggs? With truffles?”

  I was a little sorry I had suggested that explanation of me to Hattie. It would be a shame to disappoint a girl who could curtsy like that. “You’d better save it,” I said. “This egg not only hasn’t hatched, it’s not even laid yet.”

  Raymond Dell was boring holes through me with deep-set blue-gray eyes. “I wouldn’t have my picture taken with Carol Jasper,” he said, “for all the gold of Ormuz and of Ind.”

  “You can squat down behind,” Hattie said. “Come on, Mr. Goodwin.” She moved. “He wants to see the house. I hope the beds are made.”

  I said I’d see them later and followed her out. Halfway down the hall she asked, not lowering her voice, “How was that? All right?”

  “Fine,” I said, loud enough to carry back. “They’re interested and that’ll help.”

  She stopped at a door on the left toward the front, opened it, and went in. I followed and closed the door. The window blinds were down and it was almost as dark as night, but she flipped a wall switch and light came from a cluster of bulbs in the ceiling. I glanced around. A sofa, dark red plush or velvet, chairs to match; a fireplace with a marble mantel; worn and faded carpet; an upright piano against the wall on the right, and, beyond the piano, shelves of books.

  “Here,” Hattie said, and went to the shelves. “I put the books back like they were.” As I moved to join her the corner of my eye caught something, and I turned my head; and, seeing it, I turned more and then froze. It was Tammy Baxter, flat on the floor behind the sofa, staring up at the ceiling; and, as if to show her where to stare, the handle of a knife at right angles to her chest was pointing straight at the cluster of lights.

  To show you how freaky a human mind can be, as if you didn’t already know, the thought that popped into mine was that Hattie had been right: a counterfeiter would have more clothes; and what brought it was the fact that Tammy’s skirt was nearly to her waist, exposing her legs. That took the first tenth of a second. The next thought was also of Hattie, just as freaky but for men only, based on the strictly male notion that women aren’t tough enough to take the sight of a corpse. I turned, and she was there at my elbow, staring down at it.

  “That’s a knife,” she said.

  That plain statement of fact brought my mind to. I went and squatted, lifted Tammy’s hand, and pressed hard on the thumbnail. When I released the pressure it stayed white. The dead hand flopped back to the carpet and I stood up. I glanced at my wrist: twelve minutes past one. “You’ll see the cops now,” I said. “If you don’t want—Hands off! Don’t touch her!”

  “I won’t,” she said, and didn’t. She only touched the skirt, the hem, to pull it down, but it was bunched underneath and would come only to the knees.

  “It’s your house,” I said, “so you ought to phone, but I will if you prefer.”

  “Phone for a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have to?”

  “Certainly.”

  She went to a chair and sat. “This is the way it goes,” she said. “It always has. When I want to think I can’t. But you can, Buster, that’s your business. You ought to be able to think of something better than calling a cop.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, Hattie.” I stopped. I hadn’t realized she had become Hattie to me until I heard it come out. I went on, “But first a couple of questions, in case some thinking is called for later. When you came back here this morning to sew on the button, did you see Tammy?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see anybody?”

  “No.”

  “The car that came up on the sidewalk and hit you. Did you see the driver?”

  “Now, how could I? It came from behind.”

  “The man and woman who helped you up, and the other man. Did they see the driver?”

  “No, I asked them. They said they didn’t. I can’t think about that, I’m thinking about this. We’ll go up to my room. Ray and Martha don’t know we came in here. We’ll go up to my room and you’ll think of something.”

  “I can’t think her alive and I can’t think her body somewhere else. If you mean we forget we came in and saw it, then what? You said nobody comes in here much. Do you phone or do I?”

  Her mouth worked. “You’re no good, Buster. I wish I hadn’t sewed that button on.” She got to her feet, none too steady. “I’m going upstairs, and I’m not going to see any cops.”

  She moved, but not toward the door. She stood and looked down at the corpse, and said, “It’s not your fault, Tammy. Your name won’t ever be on a marquee now.” She moved again, stopped at the door to say, “The phone’s in th
e hall,” and went.

  I looked around. There was no sign of a struggle. There was nothing to be seen that might not have belonged to the room—Tammy’s handbag, for instance. I went and squatted by her for a look at the knife handle; it was plain black wood, four inches long, the kind for a large kitchen knife. It was clear in to the handle and there was no blood.

  I got erect and went to the hall, where I had noticed the phone on a stand under the stairs. Voices were coming from the kitchen. That it wasn’t a coin phone, out in the open in that house, was worthy of remark; either Hattie’s roomers could be trusted not to take liberties, or she could afford not to take care if they did. Only now, evidently, one of them had taken the liberty of sticking a knife in Tammy Baxter. I dialed the number I knew best.

  “Yes?”

  I have tried to persuade Wolfe that is no way to answer the phone, with no success. “Me,” I said. “Calling from Miss Annis’ house to report a complication. We went in the parlor to look at the bookshelf and found Tammy Baxter on the floor with a knife in her chest. The girl that came this morning to ask if miss Annis had been there and that the T-man asked about. Miss Annis won’t call the police, so I have to. I am keeping my voice low because this phone is in the hall and there are people in the kitchen with the door open. I have my eye on it. I need instructions. You told Miss Annis you would return her property to her, and you like to do what you say you’ll do. So when I answer questions what do I save?”

  “Again,” he growled.

  “Again what?”

  “Again you. Your talent for dancing merrily into a bog is extraordinary. Why the deuce should you save anything? Save for what?”

  “I’m not dancing and I’m not merry. You sent me here. In one minute, possibly two, it would occur to you as it has to me that it would be a nuisance to have to explain why we postponed reporting that counterfeit money. I could omit the detail that I inspected it and found it was counterfeit. If and when the question is put I could deny it.”